29th Feb - Leaving Hostivice

All good things must come to an end, and eventually I had to leave the wonderful little town of Hostivice and set sail for my next destination: Vienna.

Something that I quickly realized as I puttered along Czech roads, is that it isn’t a flat country. For most of you this surely seems normal, but I’ve done most of my driving in Poland or on French and German highways, all of which are very very flat. Obviously this means that the driving is not the same, I knew that, but I didn’t know what it was supposed to be. The first few kilometers were, to say the least, nerve racking, although you’d expect that when you’ve misjudged how steep the hill is, you see your speedometer go 80…70…65… until you finally reach the top at a glorious 40km/h with many angry drivers behind you. Eventually I got the hang of it and was able to enjoy the view.

An interesting thing about Czech highways, they’ve got the flag next to them, I don’t see the point nor understand why. I was also surprised as to how the roads and cities are empty after dark, this is something else I wasn’t used to. Every time I crossed a small city or village, it felt surreal; no lights, no cars, no people.

I had left midafternoon, so night fell quickly, however the sky was clear and the moon was bright, and on top of that the land was covered in all places by a smooth layer of snow nearly all the way to Vienna. I slowed down and cruised along the country roads.

Once I reached Vienna I lost myself about 100 times trying to find a parking, until eventually I gave up, found a McDonalds’ and slept on their parking.